by Terry Jones, 1983.
Starring: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin.
Rating: 8.5/10, 8/10.
This is the most overlooked of the Monty Python films, and in my opinion it is also the best.
Sure, there are some slow moments—the scene in the trenches kind of drags, and the restaurant scene with the ridiculously fat-suited Terry Jones is just way too long and gross and not funny. But those moments aside, it’s brilliant.
Unlike Holy Grail and Life Of Brian, there is no plot, and unlike Now For Something Completely Different it is not a collection of random sketches. Except for the wonderful "short feature" before the movie, it’s all about the various stages of life: birth, childhood, war, death, and so on.
Like with most comedies, it’s hard to say anything about this film without just running through all of the jokes. Anyway, the Sperm Song is genius—I just hope that all those children, now that they’ve grown up and understand what they were singing about, look back on what they created with pride. The idea of heaven here is also hilarious, especially when you find out what day it always is there. The scene the picture above comes from is possibly one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen captured on film. Live kidney transplants, the song about the universe, everything. Wonderous.
But yeah. What else can one say about it? Best of the Monty Python films, and that’s saying a lot.